


You don't need promises to do what you truly want

by LesnaVra



Category: Gintama
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Ginzura - Freeform, Joui War, Katsura's POV, Post Joui War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 11:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19005265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LesnaVra/pseuds/LesnaVra
Summary: "Katsura would have sought for him, even without the promise and that irks him."There's a war and Gin and Zura exchange a simple promise. But the new era comes and being around each other isn't simple anymore.Written for Ginzura Week 2019 prompt Promise





	You don't need promises to do what you truly want

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: might contain high dose of self-indulgement and OOCness.

With each day Katsura Kotarou's head grew lighter, emptier. It seemed Gintoki knew all along what Zura was destined to become, calling him an airhead, questioning the existence of a brain under the ludicrously silky wig well before the war happened. Yes, it felt like his brain was gradually rotting away. Although nobody called this affliction like that then, the advent of modern psychology that came with Amanto would simply diagnose it as decision fatigue with a few other war-triggered issues as well. The ethics would add something about a moral struggle, historian would mumble about the fate of a commander in a losing battle, and a priest would put it all on karma.

Whatever it was Kotarou was simply tired of sending his comrades to death, intricate plans turning utterly futile in the confrontation of Amanto's unrelenting forces. No matter what they did, no matter how many small victories they achieved, enemy forces had an upper hand and would crash the hard-earned advantages in a single blow.

Katsura wasn't allow to falter - he was supposed to be a tactician than outsmarted the brute strength of the occupants. Yet, the list of things he should have know, should have envision, should have taken care of grew longer each day. Maybe the circumstances were getting more dire. Maybe he just learnt to see things previously neglected. But it sure felt his choices became sloppy, desperate, made in rush. Wrong. They were still losing, so their plans have to be wrong, right?

And how did it come to this that soldiers looked up to him? One day he was a simple recruit, the other day, there was nobody around to tell the squads to retreat from the lost fight and regroup in safety of their camp. So he did it. To push his brothers out of the danger zone, because Gintoki's and Shinsuke's strong point was battle frenzy, not reason.

 

Days like this one, without a major battle, were still exhausting. The death hovered above them like the storm clouds and Katsura had been arranging things so they wouldn't be swayed by the foul weather of history. The war council dragged on, squad leaders sought the approval of their commander, new recruits came and needed to be assessed and assigned to the adequate units. Pushed away responsibilities bounced back. Sakamoto hadn't come back yet with provisions - send men to search for him. Shinsuke yelled fiercely about revenge - talk it out of his mind, before he rushed into the unknown. Gintoki had been a little too rough training new men - do something about their morale. Oh, Gintoki and Shinsuke were fighting again?- stop the two idiots and do not let yourself be killed in the process.

 

Finally, with the fall of the evening the camp grew quieter. Others' sleep granted Kotarou some respite. With the last order given to the soldiers on tonight watch (even choosing the men for it was never a simple point-out-a-finger, there were wounded ones who needed rest more than others, there were the more observant ones, the more trusted), he dragged to the side of the camp secluded by the sparse bushes. The Four Heavenly Kings' shared tent was nearby, so the rest of the soldiers respectfully kept away. Their so called 'private' campfire danced in the falling dusk, carving out from shadows the familiar silhouette that was sitting on the one of the log surrounding it.

Kotarou flopped down beside the man, sliding to the ground so the log supported his back.

"Others?" he murmured flatly, staring at the burning branches.

"Sakamoto still out there, probably found a brothel," a tired, but somehow amused sigh. "Takasugi with Kiheitai."

"You? Why not sleeping, Gintoki?"

"Like to look at the fire," the arms shrugged slightly.

"Thanks." Zura surrendered to the warmth spreading through his body that had not much to do with the fire in front of him. Gintoki wouldn't be able to guess how much this simple kindness of waiting for his return meant for Kotarou. Or maybe he did, that's why he'd done it. 

"Ha?"

"Nothing." His voice must have given out too much, for Gintoki to plaster his big hand on Zura's neck. That was another mystery, that hand that took hundreds of lives seems to Kotarou as pure as it had always been.

"Your dinner?" silver-haired man simply asked. Everything became simple with him. "What do you want to eat?"

"Whatever."

"Good, because we have rice topped with seaweeds or seaweeds topping rice."

Katsura leant against Gintoki's tight, it was only natural to yearn for rest, to want the exhausted mind be soothed.

"Oi, oi, don't sleep yet! And especially not on me, Zura!" but he didn't push him away, he never did. "Zura... Earth to Zura! I'm not having you dirty and stinky in our tent, or your stomach growling in the night."

"It's not Zura," he sighed after a while. "So tired."

"Ha? Didn't we have like a day off?" he sneered, but then added quietly, "It's this commanding shit, isn't? "

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura," said man mumbled.

"Your tiny brain might have stopped working, but I'm here, so you can be simply Zura. You are just Zura to me. The stupid Zura-"

"Stupid Gintoki," he huffed, but smiled right after.

The fire camp cracked, sending sparks to the sky like fireflies.

"Gintoki," Kotarou looked up at the friend's face, " if we are... parted on the battlefield,  you'll find me, ok?"

"I... I will. And you'll find me, Zura, right?"

"That's a promise then."

"A promise."

Comforting silence blanked them. Kotarou's head fell on Gintoki's tight again.

"Oi, I was serious, don't sleep yet! I'll fetch you a dinner and you go wash yourself, stinky old man!"

 

 

When they dealt with all the evening preparation, they moved their blankets from the tent. The weather after all turned gracious and the light warm wind descended from the mountains. So they lay down on the grass  under the dome of stars, as shadows from the flickering out fire fought on the tent wall behind them.

Later at night they woke up to the sound of Shinsuke swearing loudly, as he almost tripped over their bodies. Nonetheless he fetched his blanket and threw them across the sleeping comrades, to slip a moment later under covers at Zura's side. Sometime later, when they drifted in dreams, a log collapse on them, crushing them under his warm weight.

"Miss me? Ahahaha I'm back."

 

[***]

 

Katsura learns that there is an albino man that has been living in Kabuki for years, running a tiny business upstairs of a bar. One needs to be blind, deaf and live under the rock not to take notice of Joui fights in Edo, not to hear about one of the faction leader that has WANTED poster on every corner  of the city. The man - Gintoki - is not. His eyesight is as good as ever when he looks for lost pets, he possess the TV set, and Katsura's picture hangs at the conbini, in which he does his shopping every other day.

 

Katsura is.... is perplex. It would be too easy to call it joy, although the thought ' _Gintoki Gintoki he found Gintoki'_  makes him walk in constant ecstasy for two weeks. It would be not accurate either to call it just anger that his brother has forgotten about him, because there is also disappointment, guilt, anxiety, jealousy, and a twisted pleasure rooted in self-hatred that the man doesn't need him to be happy.

He's not proud about it. His petite whim,  distrust, doubts, and fear of just casually appearing help him weave a plan to orchestrate a meeting, to push the man into action by tying him to Joui.

 

"Zura Kotarou?" there's a disbelief in Gintoki's voice. And what about this name, Sakata never used his given name.

Their meeting is bitter. The old friend's accepting, as if these year of separation never happened, yet he is indifferent as if those years of brotherhood was a false memory too.

Shinsuke envisaged it.

 

He can't help being wary - yet he's been drawn to the man as a moth to the flame. It's not easy, but he comes, he comes and comes. To see it with his own eyes again, to spite him, to hang out with him, to help him, to just see him functioning in the new era, to make sure he and the kids are safe. Gintoki pushes and pushed and pushes him away. With his cold shoulder, with sarcastic comments, with new friends ostentatiously being more important.

 

Katsura would have sought for him, even without the promise and that irks him - the lack of integrity. Gintoki being lazy, rude was nothing new. But he was a man of his words. A person to whom he attached the concept of safety and trust.

Just like a stupid shounen protagonist Sakata comes with a motto to protect everybody in the vicinity of his sword. Somehow it applies to Kotarou as well, but only when they fight side by side. This shitty, false to the core declaration is as much as he can get. Gintoki sets him away like a piece of weaponry after the battle has ended, and he refuses to acknowledge him more than as an acquaintance that stubbornly sticks around. Wasn't Katsura somebody meaningful to the silver samurai? Weren't they brothers? More than brothers?

 

Joui 4 had exchanged many promises. "I swear I kill you, you idiot", "That's the last time I do it for you," "It's true, I swear!", "oh, come on, it'll be fun, I'll promise". Maybe he put too much importance to off-hand words. Or the bonds taken in the previous era lost their value just like monme, becoming one day just a rusty, useless burden. Shinsuke had spoiled Kotarou too much, accustoming him that the old promises always reach their fulfillment.

 

Rejection burns at Kotarou's soul. People leaving him is a recurrent theme of his life, he thinks, and he should have already learnt not to believe that anything will last. He struggles. And then he is simply too tired to fight. He slowly adapts. It's just not in his nature to be spiteful. Anyway, the hurt remains.

 

And then with no particular reason, maybe when Leader, an innocent girl under Sakata's care, calls him by his nickname, he gets it. Gintoki is not the oath breaker, he has never been.

The one who didn't keep his end of the deal was he. Back then - he can't place that evening in a year or season, but he remembers that fire colored silver hair red  -  Gintoki asked him: "You'll find me, Zura, right?"

Not Zura, but that was Katsura who found Gintoki. Has been pestering him since then. The gloomy terrorist Katsura Kotarou, a dangerous man that carries a burden of revolution at his shoulders. Not Zura.

 

So one day he grabs his courage and try to remember how it feels to be just Zura. He sets off to Yorozuya and  tells Gintoki that he is sorry, and that he has finally found him. The man probably doesn't get it. The well trained words still sound like a nonsensical gibber.  Zura doesn't explain more, he can't, he just leaves.

He doesn't show up for a couple of days. He is too ashamed, too guilty. The man is building a new life and how could Kotarou try to spoil it, stain it with Katsura's presence...

 

"Oh,  you're here! I've finally found you, Zura." There's a familiar voice above him, but the face is out of Kotarou's vision, restricted by the rim of a straw hat, as he is sitting on the street, begging in zen priest robes. What a painful choice of words, he thinks. And then he can't help it that the words pour from his mouth as well.

"I have been looking for you for years. All this time," a monk making his bitter confessions, "Shinsuke said you were dead."

Gintoki is stunned. So he just adds, "And I'm sorry. I'm not Zura. I can't be Zura."

"What are you babbling about? I'm around so you are just Zura to me," there is confusion in the voice, probing. "Is this commanding a bunch of airhead terrorist shit getting on your mood?"

"I'm sorry for getting you involved with Joui. For all the troubles. I'll take responsibility for it."

"We're even."

"I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have shown up like that. After all these years. I am sorry. I know I shouldn't. I am a horrible, egoistic person to torment you like that-"

"You're talking nonsense," he laughs nervously, "I'm not good at talking... Zura, just come home. I'll let you make onigiri for all of us, ha?" He grabs Kotarou by the hems of his kimono and hoists him up. There is a slight panic in his voice.

" I couldn't... I couldn't face you. Not after... I was sure you... hate me. I have no right to your kindness, Zura."

"You have found me," he pants, "Gintoki. I am not kind. I am-"

" Yeah, yeah, heard that already. But you're wrong, you're just Zura to me. The kindest idiot that takes responsibility, and worries, and concerns himself and  gosh, I thought you're gone again."

"I would just find you again."

"Just be Zura."

He simply nods, because it starts to be simple again being around Gintoki.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, feedback appreciated!


End file.
